Page 25 of Felicity Cabot Sells Her Soul
Chapter Nine
As Felicity blinked her eyes open, she realized that the fire had once again gone out in the night. The vast expanse of bed lay vacant before her and the tangle of the covers slithered across it as she’d dragged them with her toward Ian’s side of the bed. Once more she had ended up tucked up against him, her cheek pillowed against the arm wedged beneath her head, soaking in the heat of his chest pressed against her back.
She couldn’t be blamed for such an action, she knew, when one considered that it had been executed whilst she had been unconscious.Hecouldn’t blame her, at least—but that didn’t stop her from harboring a shred of annoyance with herself for gravitating toward him even in sleep. It was just that he was warm, and perhaps some small part of her left over from a decade ago longed for the comforting presence of him there beside her. The reassuring weight of his arm over her waist. The heat of his legs perfect for warming her cold toes. The ridge of his arousal cradled against the softness of her bottom.
Felicity flexed her fingers and bent her arm in preparation to jam her elbow into his solar plexus and gain a crucial distance, and—
Ian snored in her ear.
Her hand relaxed. Her arm settled once more. A few more minutes of warmth, then, stolen while he still slept, even if he would have offered it willingly had he been awake. She’d become accustomed to him rising quite early; so much earlier than she did, and she had long thought herself an early riser. She had never woken before him until today.
Perhaps it was weak of her, pitiful of her to take some small pleasure in a stolen intimacy that would not survive Ian’s waking, but just lately she had felt so damned alone. Set adrift, swept downstream by an unshakable current, flailing against the cruelties and vagaries of a fate she was helpless to change.
The ties that bonded her to her sisters were so much more frail and frayed than she had thought. And it had been so damned long since she had been held, touched, comforted and cossetted. There was a part of her—the exceptionally stupid part; the part that had spent the last ten years frozen intime—that wanted to simply relax into the warmth of Ian’s body and recapture a sliver of those old feelings she’d smothered to death years ago. An echo of them would suffice, just a fraction of that warmth that had once belonged to her, and which he had snatched away.
And while he slept still, the only one to judge her a fool for it was herself.
Just a few moments more. Just for these few moments she could fall into the past and pretend that her life hadn’t been turned upon its head. Just for these few moments—
Ian made a low rumble deep in his chest; a purely male sound of primitive pleasure. His arm tightened about her waist and he buried his face in her hair, drawing in a long breath as if he had caught some scent there that he wanted to pull as deeply into his lungs as possible. His hand flattened over her belly, slid up over her ribs, and settled heavily over one breast, cradling the weight of it in his palm.
Heat sparked between her thighs, her nipple tightening to a firm point beneath the pressure of his hand.Unbelievable. Felicity balled her hand into a fist, bent her elbow, and drove the point of it straight into his stomach.
Ian jerked away with a grunt of pain, nearly falling off the bed as he recoiled from the bony point of her elbow lodged in his midsection. “What the devil?” he said in a sleep-slurred mumble. “What the hell was that for?”
“You grabbed my breast!” Felicity accused, tossing herself back toward the center of the bed.
“Did I?” To his credit, he sounded genuinely surprised—if not particularly remorseful.
Ugh. Felicity cast off the counterpane, throwing the bulk of it behind her as she scooted toward the edge of the bed, swinging her legs over the side. There was the tiniest bit of satisfaction to be had in the garbled sound he made, suggesting she’d managed to hit him in the face with the covers. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?”
“Yes. Having been quite asleep at the time, I regret that I have no memory of it. I’m rather fond of your breasts.”
She remembered. She had once beenfondof his fondness for them. “Don’t do it again,” she snapped as she tugged the hem of her nightgown down past her knees and hopped off the bed.
“How am I meant to agree to such a request?” She heard the soft puff of the pillow as he resettled himself, reclining back in bed with his arms folded beneath his head. “I can’t help what I do in my sleep any more than you can.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Ian’s gaze followed her as she stalked toward the vanity to retrieve her hairbrush. “Do you know how often I wake with you clinging to me like a limpet?” he asked. “Every damned morning.Every one.”
“You know I get cold!” A few yanks of the brush through the tangle of her hair was good enough; she slammed the brush back down upon the surface of the vanity table and scraped up a few pins, winding her hair up at the back of her head and jamming the pins in to secure it. “It’s hardly my fault you purchased such a drafty house.”
“I’ve always found it comfortable. More so, just lately.” Ian shifted about, cramming a few pillows behind his back as he repositioned himself to sit up, the better to watch her as she headed for the dressing room. “Large houses can be lonely.”
“Surely not with more than a dozen servants milling about.” She stomped into the dressing room and cast about for one of her dour black dresses. It had been too many days since she’d last been well enough to don anything but a nightgown. But her fever had broken early yesterday, and she’d lost the wheeze that had followed each breath, and her sore throat was much improved. It was time at last to be back about her usual business.
“Itislonely,” he insisted, lifting his voice to carry through the dressing room door. “In the right circumstances, one can be lonely in a crowd.” A sigh, long and overly dramatic to her ears. “Give a bit of grace, Felicity. I like a little warmth, same as you. It’s been a long damned time since I’ve had a woman in my bed.”
“Hah!” Felicity said as she tied the laces of her stays and smoothed at her petticoat.
“Hah?” he echoed, his voice rife with consternation. There was a rustle of fabric, followed by the stomp of bare feet across the floor. Felicity managed to drag her dress over her head, the pins she’d jammed into her hair pulling at the sharp movement, just as the door flew open. Ian appeared, a loose sheet draped haphazardly about his waist. “What the hell do you—” His brows knitted, his dark gaze raking over her, the indignation which had propelled him here from his lounge upon the bed promptly forgotten. “What are you doing?”
“I’m recovered,” Felicity said, twitching her skirts down and reaching for the laces. “I’ve neglected my duties too long already. I’m going to the school.”
A muscle twitched in Ian’s jaw. “You’re the headmistress,” he said. “Your duties are what you say they are.”
“Isayit is time for me to return,” she said. “The holiday will be over next week. The rest of the girls will soon be returning, and I have got a full staff to prepare in advance of it.” She rifled through the dresser and retrieved a pair of stockings. “I’m already dreadfully late.”
